Playwright · Screenwriter · Professor · Queer Jester from Amish PA
(they/she)
LA/NYC
The Wild Project Theater, NYC (2022)
Dark comedy about lesbian Amish meth addicts
90 min, 6 actors (2f, 3m, 1 f/nb)
Amish childhood gal pals Sadie Smucker and Willa Stoltzfus share a run-down trailer, crystal meth addiction, and queer romantic tension thick as a milkshake. The teens have spent their Rumspringa together higher than Heaven, but today face their rite-of-passage choice: surrender their forbidden love, or flee Lancaster County and be shunned forever. With 24 hours until the autumn baptism ceremony, six twisted interrelated sinners must come...clean. This ensemble-oriented dark comedy sheds electricity-powered light on the rural drug epidemic and navigation of repressed gender identity and sexuality. BYOBonnet.
Development: 2nd Stage Tony Kiser Theater - Closed Workshop (2023), The Wild Project (2022), UP Theater (2022), Chain Theater (2022), Columbia University (2022), Yonder Window Theater (2021), Speranza Theater (2021)
Awards (Selected): James Madison University New Works Finalist (2023), Lanford Wilson Festival Finalist (2023), American Blues Theater Award Semifinalist (2023), Emerson Stages Finalist (2022), Fulton Theater Festival Finalist (2022), Bay Street Theater Festival Semifinalist (2022)
Lenfest Center for the Arts, NYC (2023)
Farce of Hollywood & Bollywood rom-com tropes
100-110 min, 5 actors (2f, 1m, 2 nb) + optional dance troupe
Jensen and Sienna, two privileged Americans studying abroad in India, use Shaadi.com, a real matchmaking app, to help their desi bestie find true love...and pay off their student loans with the dowry money. But when Sienna and the eligible bachelorette Ridhi fall in love instead, all five tightly-interwoven, incognito characters become entangled in the Red Thread of Fate. This queer satirical sendup, featuring Bollywoood dance choreography, breaks open savior complexes, commodification of diversity and identity, masking with internalized stereotypes, and when it’s Time to BeReal.
Development: Williamstown Theater Festival (2024), Columbia University (2023), Yonder Window Theater (2022), Speranza Theater (2022)
Awards (Selected): Kernodle New Play Award Finalist (2024), O'Neill National Playwrights Conference Semifinalist (2024), Pipeline Theater Finalist (2024), Austin Film Festival 2nd Rounder (2023), Dramatist Guild Foundation Fellowship Finalist (2022)
Westbeth Artists Residency (Site-Specific), NYC (2021)
Biopic about Diane Arbus
100 min, 4 actors (1f/nb, 3 any)
Photographer Diane Arbus (known for her black-and-white portraits of "freaks") is on a childlike quest to capture the human experience--before her "Box of 10 Photographs" (an obsessive, perfectionist self-assignment) closes shut and she dies by suicide. Across a series of vignettes, framed to homage these photos and defining life moments, Diane dives from Upper West Side privilege through 1930s-60s American bohemia. An experimental piece, Where I've Never Gone (WING) soars through poems assembled from real quotes, audience interaction and fun with photography, burlesque cabaret, and a collapsing set. It's funny, but it also always makes audiences cry, so beware.
Development: Westbeth Artists Residency (site-specific presentation, where Diane died of suicide, 2021), independent study with David Henry Hwang (2021), Wallace Stegner House Residency (2020)
Awards: Emerson Stages Finalist (2021), Athena Project Award Finalist (2020)
Under St. Mark's Theater, NYC (2024)
Bardcore
Episodic Theater (5 episodes) about a Renaissance fair polycule
5 60-min episodes, 4 actors
Trouble doth ensue at the Baltimore Area Renaissance Faire (BARF) when the Monarch and Creative Director impulsively announces the fair is closing and she’s dumping all three of her polyamorous partners. Shocked and heartbroken, her fellow employees and lovers—a depressed jester, toxically chivalrous knight, and metaphysically troubled tarot reader—traverse the five stages of grief as they mourn their utopian summer and prepare to re-enter the real world.
Development: Episodic Theater Project @ Under St. Marks Theater (2024)
Mermaids Have No Tears
Dramedy about a pregnant ENM professional mermaid
60-min episodes, 3 actors (1f, 1m, 1nb)
The open relationship between two individuals with uteruses, Morgan, a food-stamps-Floridian-turned-TikTok-mermaid, and Fyn, an ocean justice warrior, is going, umm, swimmingly...until Morgan becomes pregnant with Fyn's ex-AA sponsor, Wade. He's a lit professor obsessed with queer-coded fairytales. And yes, this story is inspired by The Little Mermaid--but moreover, the class-conscious, unrequited queer love triangle that compelled Hans Christian Anderson to isolate on Fyn Island and outpour it. In a theatrical utopia with unlimited resources, a water tank would exist onstage.
Deep Throats: The Musical
Musical about Nathan's National Hot Dog Eating Competition
90-min, 6 actors + chorus
Every 4th of July, at Coney Island, Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest crowns the ultimate American patriot. In a fictionalized turn of events, this year, the company's long line of sausages (businessmen) has run out, and they're forced to let a "girlboss" fill the big buns. She reckons with her position of power--namely, her opportunity to unite the men's and women's divisions--as lust and animosity simmer among suppressed competitors. Inspired by true (self-proclaimed) athletes, mukbangers, and corporate tycoons, this rock musical digs into America's insatiable consumption of food, sports, machismo, and other cultures. As the iconic Crazy Legs Conti once said, "We can't tell our stories, because we've got our mouths full." Well, let them try and sing, with their mouths full.
Bohemian National Hall, NYC
Political satire about activism & Vaclav Havel adaptation
40 min, 4 actors
Inspired by Czech playwright and politician, Vaclav Havel, and his Vanek Plays, this three-part play digs into activism today. Released from jail for protesting, a zillennial, femme-identifying version of Havel begins waitressing at a local bistro, where she struggles to survive and adapt to contemporary consumers. There, she's visited by petty, privileged "friends" and "followers" enjoying brunch.
Development: Vaclav Havel Symposium at University of Toronto (2021), Untitled Theater Company #61 (2021), Prague Performing Arts Academy (2019)
Awards: Vaclav Havel Library Foundation Playwriting Award (2019), print publication in Borderless Anthology at Drama Book Shop (2022), print publication of Havel Library Foundation (2020)
Choreoplay about travel & hostels
40 min, 4 actors
In poetic vignettes, four interconnected travelers tell stories about their journeys and lore about each other. They cross paths over time and country lines, bump into spirits and saints, and indirectly impact lives while exploring themes of success and burnout, love and family, and fate. Their parallels ultimately lead them all "home" --whatever that means.
Development: Over Due Theater Company (2021), The Main Santa Clarita (2021), Tetrad Festival (2021), Iowa State University (2020)
Awards: Wallace Stegner House Residency (2020)
Watch the short filmed/Zoom version, created by Overdue Theater Company, here!
Columbia University, NYC (2022)
Where A Kid Can Be A Kid
Dramedy about divorcing at Chuck E. Cheese
90 min, 4 actors (2f, 2m)
In the bitchin’ year 1992 at a Chuck E. Cheese nestled in a New Jersey strip mall, two bickering parents set the table for their son’s 10th birthday party. Unfortunately, both the establishment and marriage are deteriorating into gritty nostalgia. Mom’s a pantsuit flaunting career woman; Dad’s fooling around in garages for something called Yahoo. Their fun and games are complicated by a closeted, gabagool-loving Manager, who's struggling to rebrand the original mascot, chainsmoking Rick Rat, into family-friendly “Charles Entertainment Cheese.” In this first scene of a first draft, we observe a headless rat-man, animatronic dance number, and peek into the couple's past, during a bygone time when kids could be kids.
Development: Columbia University MFA Workshop (2022)
Hudson Guild Theater, NYC (2019)
Dramedy about heartbreak through DABDA
90 min, 6 actors (3f, 2m, 1 any)
After a melodramatic college breakup, writer Carrie leaves NYC for London to navigate the Kubler-Ross Model (DABDA), from Denial to Acceptance. An ensemble of initial strangers explore maturity, independence, mental health, & commitment both in Real Life and their imaginations, while maintaining pristine social media presence. Includes optional audience interaction (digital response, characters' socials, Buzzfeed quiz style polls and voting).
Development: NY Theater Festival (2019), Penn State School of Theatre (2019), Wonderlust Theater Company (2018)
Awards: Penn State Schreyer Honors College Grant Recipient (2018)
Penn State University, PA (2018)
how'd i get here (original title: Sacred Trauma)
Personal narrative & docu-theater about reporting sexual assault
90 min, 5 actors (3 f, 2m)
College freshman Elaine finds herself in the ER, the morning after frat formal. Ushered through the sexual assault reporting process, she slips into surreal childhood flashbacks and rediscovers old support systems and sources of trauma. Meanwhile, in the waiting room, the complicated night's events unfold. For all characters--from the medical staff to Elaine's frat date--this surfaces existential questions regarding identity, purpose, gender, and sex.
Development: State College Community Theater (2018), Tempest Productions at The State Theatre (2018), Penn State Honors College (2018)
Awards: Penn State Schreyer Honors College Grant Recipient (2018)
Watch a compiled video of audience reactions to Sacred Trauma here!